


Lilith Remembers

by TeaJay (LoreWren)



Category: Exalted (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Abuse, F/M, Gen, Memory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24780826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoreWren/pseuds/TeaJay
Summary: They rewrote Lilith’s backstory for 3e. How might we synthesize these lives?
Relationships: Desus/Lilith (Exalted)
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Lillith remembers. Desus—always Desus, even if he will wear a different name, a different face this time—loves her so, so much. They leave each other’s side when they need to: strategy, necessity, accidents. It hurts, every time, a sharp pang of longing in her heart and more, knowing it hurts him just as much, empathy turning longing frantic.

Others call this accident the Usurpation. It was a massacre, but they can set things right, her and Desus, together. _Whose blood is it? Desus, you have blood on you. It can’t be yours. It’s never yours._

He had sworn to find her, always. In this life and every other. That was the first, simplest oath, made even before this life, twining into everything they have ever done. And they were bound tighter and truer than even other Solars and Lunars, not just to know each other on sight but on Exaltation, that she may always run to him, the instant they take their Second Breath. She knows which way, as surely as she knows where the moon rests in the sky, and knows even before she sees him that she is meant to go to him. 

Every time they reunite, the pain—even pain she hadn’t noticed—turns to joy. Explosive, bright, true joy, the kind that one lifetime can’t hold.

 _It hurts_ . It hurts, watching him die, _hurts worse than anything you’ve ever done to me, love._ But he’ll be back. _I’ll know. The very instant, I will know, my truest love._

Every tick away from him hurts more. Desus would not leave her. If she cannot find him, he is being kept somehow, some way, and she will never feel that joy again.

Something...loosens.

Lillith is an owl, when she feels the pain halt. She had run and then flown, seeking that marker, _this way, this way_ , seeking _my love_.

She feels, instead, the wind in her wings. She breathes, and tastes air. Not from his lungs and—sweeter for it?

One talon is twisted out of place. She hadn’t noticed. _Desus has done worse than this._

The thought fills her mind. There is room for it now, room to remember _the enemy, not-Desus—_

Time to remember Desus, the part he let her fear but not remember.

* * *

Desus _not Desus_ looks at her, curious. He has her wrist, too tight, nearly breaking bone, _nearly breaking my bone, my love, I don’t understand—_

She didn’t. She does.

* * *

Screaming. An invasion, breaking her mind, twisting her memories into something she can barely follow, 

“Stay with me, Lillith,” Desus murmurs, warm breath brushing her ear.

 _I want to leave_ , she tries to say. It comes out as a scream. 

“It hurts so much when you leave me.”

A different scream. She remembers this, but only pieces, only him with his hands on her wounds, only him saying it hurts when she leaves him. _It hurts because you make it hurt.  
_

* * *

She screams, not sure whether it’s in memory or present until she hits the ground, the trees shaking with her grief. 


	2. Chapter 2

Time passes, day by day. Lilith guards Creation, as was always her charge, even before _Desus, my enemy_. She hunts Fair Folk, demons, Dragonblooded, and fresh meat.

Lilith is hunting, and then she is not.

Her heart twists as she turns her head to him. That way, half a season as the owl flies. _My enemy. My traitor._

Part of her remembers. Part of her remembers pain. It comes rushing back, loving him, how much it hurt to lose him, how she screamed to loud enough to set the world shaking. He left, and she remembered.

He’s back.

_My love._

She missed him, so much.


End file.
